


of broken mirrors and haunted rooms (i'm empty inside but so are you)

by rudderless in an ocean of stars (indelibly_ellie)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Azula-centric, F/M, Mental Instability, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-04 21:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indelibly_ellie/pseuds/rudderless%20in%20an%20ocean%20of%20stars
Summary: After nearly half a decade in a cell, the decision to take Azula’s bending away has finally been made.Someone has to break the news to her, and who better than the Avatar to do so, the man who has spent the past three years trying to show the princess the kindness he realized she’d never known.//In which Azula has been kept inside a mental institution ever since her mental breakdown at the end of the war, and Aang's the optimistic fool who keeps visiting her.





	1. brittle bones and words unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Assuming Aang was 12 coming out of the ice and 14 at the series finale, this takes place roughly 5 years after that. We don’t ever really get to find out the ages of the other characters, so this fic is going by my rules. 
> 
> This makes Aang, Azula, Katara, Sokka, Mai, Ty Lee, and Suki all about 19 years old. Zuko, canonically one year older than Azula, so he’s 20. Toph, as the youngest, is only 18. 
> 
> Azula is the focus of this story, and in part, Aang. 
> 
> I will include other characters, though. :p
> 
> Will their relationship be romantic or platonic? 
> 
> I haven't decided yet.
> 
> Have an opinion about it? Let me know. :)
> 
> I'll update the tags if needed, but I'll tag both 'Azula & Aang' and 'Azula/Aang' to be on the safe side of things. 
> 
> Either way, they will be fairly close. :D

The Avatar doesn’t take away her bending.

 

Doesn’t need to, because that’s what the drugs are for. It takes the doctors years to figure it out, how to make something that will block her chi and nothing else.

 

She’s told that the Fire Lord was adamant that the medicine only bind her powers, not her mind.

 

She’s heard the stories of what drugs like this do to people. How it takes away their bending. How it takes away everything else, too. Hollows them out until nothing remains but a practically catatonic shell that once used to be a functioning person.

 

That’s why it’s taken them so long to cook up a recipe that wouldn’t leave her virtually brain-dead, all at little Zu-Zu’s behest. She didn’t realize he still cared so much.

 

Maybe he just wanted her awake enough to be able to gloat.

 

If only they knew that their work was wasted on her.

 

Ozai had taken great care to strip out her insides and replace everything warm and living with cold, dead things a long time ago.

 

There was nothing left for the Fire Lord to preserve, but his misplaced affection for the little sister he wished she could have been blinds him to the fact that Azula has been scraped empty long ago.

 

She sees it in his eyes every time he comes to visit- the little boy he used to be. The big brother, responsible for his baby sister.

 

She’s neither a baby nor his sister anymore.

 

Would that they could, Azula knows they would have preferred to slip it into her food without her noticing at all.

 

But the taste is too bitter for them to mask, to crush pills into powder and stir it into her tea, so they are forced tell her up front that she will be medicated.

 

Rather, they send in the Avatar to do it, terrified of her reaction to the news.

 

She hasn’t actually burned anyone in years, merely sent out flashy displays of sapphire flames as a warning to anyone who draws her ire. But her scare tactics have worked well over the past few years, and work well even now.

 

“I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.” He looks at her with wide, apologetic eyes, brimming with a mixture of hope and compassion that turns her stomach at the sight.

 

“Why?” She snorts, rolling her eyes, “Isn’t being in this glorified prison misery enough?”

 

The corners of his lips twitch downwards as he averts his gaze.

 

His reaction to her words elicits a harsh bark of laughter from her throat.

 

“I see. The rest of the world isn’t content to have me simply locked up for the rest of my days. They want me to suffer.” _Just like I made them suffer_ , she thinks, pursing her lips to keep the wayward thought from escaping her mouth.

 

In typical Airbender fashion, he redirects her barb with fluid ease. “And you consider being here punishment enough for your crimes?”

 

Ah.

 

Punishment.

 

Azula’s least favorite word after _Ozai_ and  _Father_ and _dutiful_.

 

“It doesn’t matter what I think or who I am.” She nods towards the evenly spaced steel bars stretched out across her window. “What matters is what everyone else beyond these walls wants.”

 

It’s never mattered, none of it. None of her hopes and dreams and desires and _fears_. None of it has ever mattered to anyone. At least Ozai had the decency to be up front about what he wanted from her. About how he saw her, what she was.

 

The Avatar narrows his eyes at her, and she can almost see the gears turning in his head as she stares back, unflinching in the face of his unwavering gaze.

 

The past few years have changed him just as much as they’ve changed her.

 

He’s older now, leaner. 

 

If she’s correct in assuming that they’re both around the same age, he’s nearly twenty now, like her.

 

Age has stripped them both of the baby fat that once softened their features half a decade ago when they first met, children fighting a war started by people who didn’t fully understand that the price to pay for power was blood.

 

Or perhaps they did understand, and chose to spill it anyway, painting the world crimson and leaving stains that would likely never wash away.

 

Thinking about either option for too long always makes something in Azula’s gut twist.

 

He’s grown into himself, no longer looking like someone far beyond their years trapped in a childish form.

 

But his eyes remain the same, youthful and ancient all at once, and still gleaming with the unmistakable spark of hope.

 

Azula hasn’t looked into a mirror since the day she shattered her mother’s reflection, but she knows that her own eyes carry no such emotion.

 

Hope was something that Ozai had taken pains to ensure would never blossom in Azula’s heart. He’d stolen it from her as soon as he was able, extinguished from her childish eyes to be replaced with the cold steel of blades forged in angry flames.

 

They sit like that for several moments, neither one moving. Neither one looking away.

 

Then he speaks, and it strikes at the wobbly foundations of sanity she’s struggled to build ever since the day she shattered her mind along with that mirror.

 

“So who are you, Princess Azula?” She’s long-since lost any right to the title, but that never stopped him from using it, not three years ago when these visits first began and certainly not now. “And what do _you_ want?”

 

She turns away from his piercing stare, the hand buried in the folds of her skirt curling into a fist as her nails bite deep enough to draw blood.

 

For the first time, she is the one who looks away.

 

The significance of the gesture is not lost on him- she can tell as much by the way he stiffens in surprise. But she cuts him off before he has a chance to speak again.

 

After all, her fragile tether on sanity could only take so much in a single day.

 

“Don’t ask questions you aren’t ready to have answered, Avatar.” She says it quietly, voice low and tight with an emotion she knows he can’t quite place, because neither can she.

 

 _Don’t ask questions **I’m** not ready to answer_ , she thinks, but the words go unsaid.

 

She doesn’t know if she can trust her voice to carry them.

 

She doesn’t know if she can trust the Avatar to understand.

 

* * *

 

For the first time since he started visiting, her voice shakes.

 

Azula looks brittle, as if the next wrong move could shatter her and every single bit of progress he’s spent the past three years trying to make.

 

As much as he wants to push, to finally solve a piece of the puzzle that is the deposed princess, he knows he can’t. Not if he wants there to be anything left for him to solve.

 

He bows his head in acquiescence. “I apologize, Princess.”

 

She nods silently in response, now peering carefully at the embroidery of the silken scarf resting in her lap despite the fact that they both know she could care less about its craftsmanship.

 

The piece is exquisite, its stitching flawless- he knows this, because he’s the one who bought it for her. It’s become something of a tradition- giving her a tiny token of appreciation for allowing these visits, for speaking to him when they both know she could simply treat him like everyone else who tried to arrange a meeting- with the stiff, regal silence befitting her former station.

 

He’s still not really sure why she tolerates him in the first place.

 

Zuko tells him it’s because he’s the Avatar, and _if there’s anything Azula respects, it's power_.

 

Aang thinks it might be something else.

 

He can wield the four elements, but the princess is a prodigy in her own right.

 

He may be the Avatar, but she is _Azula_.

 

Azula, who possesses sapphire flames and a mastery over the most difficult of all firebending skills- manipulating lightning.

 

Three years ago, when he’d first dared to enter her room, Azula had no need to respect his power. Not when she was already so sure of her own.

 

She was still the same girl who had struck him down with a bolt of lightning, the same girl who had shown no fear at the prospect of confronting the Avatar.

 

The same girl who had left a scar on his back that not even Katara’s considerable skills as a Master Waterbender and healer could dissolve.

 

But for some reason, she tolerated him.

 

And over three years of regular visits and carefully worded exchanges over tea, he’s never asked why.

 

One day, he hopes she’ll feel comfortable enough to tell him.

 

But the dismissal is evident as she skims a hand along the silk of his latest gift to her, firmly ignoring his presence.

 

“Until tomorrow, Princess.”

 

For a single second, her eyes dart back up to meet his, golden irises flashing bright in the light spilling through the bars of her windows.

 

“Until tomorrow,” she echoes, casting her gaze back down to the fabric in her lap, the expression etched across her features still unreadable.

 

He’s nearly out the door when he hears her call out behind him, hesitant and unsure.

 

“Avatar?”

 

He stops and turns back instantly- _uncertain_ isn’t a word he’s ever associated with Princess Azula, but it’s how she sounds now.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Tomorrow, you said they’ll begin giving me medication during tea.” Again, the flicker of her aureate eyes looking up to meet his lasts only a moment, too fast for him to read the emotions glimmering within. “Will you join me?”

 

_I don’t want to be alone._

 

It goes unspoken, but they both hear it just the same.

 

He realizes it then, how much this must scare her.

 

From the little she’s shared and the information he’s managed to pry out of Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee, her firebending has been the one constant in her life.

 

And now, like everything else, it’s being taken away.

 

All this time, he’s waited for her to open up, to show the vulnerability he’s never doubted she possessed, not since the day he watched her lose her mind as well as her crown. It had struck him then, that she must have lost as much, if not more, than he and his friends. The cost of the war had been paid by both sides of it.

 

But this is not the way he’d wanted to get her to open up.

 

He bows, not deep enough to appear subservient, but deep enough that his feelings are made clear.

 

“I would be honored.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been years, but I've never gotten over the fact that Azula's story was never really resolved in the series.
> 
> Leave a review, hug a slightly deranged ex-princess.


	2. false veneers and failed façades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there's probably only a handful of people even remotely interested in a continuation of this fic, but I'm writing it anyway because it's a story that I need to tell.
> 
> I identify with Azula on so many levels, and the series never gave me the kind of closure I needed to let her go.
> 
> So...
> 
> Enjoy.

The tea takes nearly an hour to fully block her chi.

 

A liberal helping of sugar does little to mask its bitter taste.

 

Azula traces her fingers around the rim of the empty cup, one by one, as she waits. The delicate edge of gold-rimmed porcelain hums beneath her touch as she leans back against the stone wall of her cell. Across the table is the Avatar, who calmly sips his own tea as they sit in amicable silence.

 

She feels every second of it, feels every path to her inner fire being carefully closed off and boarded up like a building deemed too dangerous to enter.

 

For the first time in years, Azula feels truly _cold_.

 

Even sailing through Arctic waters hadn't left her such a chill, not a firebender with her prowess and skill. Her thin summer robes feel like paper against her skin, and she works hard to suppress a shiver.

 

The Avatar watches her with undisguised worry shining in the depths of his grey eyes- in spite of the years spent trying to perfect this drug, no one was quite sure how well a bender of her caliber would react to it.

 

"Just spit it out, Avatar," she scoffs, tossing her hair back with a smooth shrug of her shoulders. These days, without a crown to pin in place, Azula leaves her hair down more often than she bothers putting it up. "I may have all day to loiter here, but I'm sure you must be a very busy man."

 

"Not today, Princess," he says, inclining his head with a soft smile, "Today my only obligation is to you."

 

"You can't be serious. You don't honestly intend to spend the rest of the day here, do you?"

 

"Why not?"

 

"You're the Avatar." Azula speaks slowly, the way one would to a small child or a particularly stubborn animal. "You have responsibilities to the people."

 

"You're my friend." He says it like it's the simplest thing in the world, and Azula resists the urge to slap the cheery grin off of his face. He shouldn't look so thrilled at the prospect of calling himself a friend to the Mad Princess, as she's so aptly been nicknamed by the denizens of the Four Nations. She's no longer sure exactly who the crazy one is in this relationship. "I have a responsibility to you as much as anyone else."

 

Azula channels as much of her newfound frost into her voice as possible when she speaks again. "Is that what we are?"

 

His expression doesn't falter in spite of her icy tone. "Do you think we aren't?"

 

"I think you should be careful with who you choose to call 'friend.' You have a reputation to maintain, after all."

 

_The world wouldn't take to kindly to the Avatar calling a war criminal a friend._

 

She doesn't realize she's spoken her thought aloud until he frowns down at her, a crease forming in the space between his brows.

 

Azula remembers being taller than him when they'd first met. Now, even sitting, he's tall enough to have a few inches on her. On anyone else, the height difference coupled with his uncharacteristically severe expression would have appeared condescending.

 

"The war made criminals of us all."

 

Somber.

 

There's no other way to describe his tone.

 

He sounds like a mourner at a funeral, and in a way, she understands. None of them had gotten through the war unscathed. They'd all lost something- friends, family, homes. And, of course, Azula's personal favorite-

 

Innocence.

 

But he'd lost _everything_.

 

A hundred years, buried in ice as the world moved on without him, everyone he'd ever known dying or growing old while he slept.

 

No matter how good a façade he showed the rest of the world, he couldn't fool Azula. 

 

She was a good enough liar to recognize when somebody else was concealing the truth, master though he was at deception. It's a skill she initially never thought he'd have any talent at. Time and time again, the Avatar has proven her wrong, much to her amusement.

 

Most people are predictable to her.

 

Easy to read.

 

Even easier to intimidate.

 

Easier still to control.

 

Puppets dancing on strings Azula had been able to see since she was old enough to remember.

 

She'd learned how to pull the strings herself, even as Ozai had twisted hers into knots she might never fully unravel.

 

The Avatar is a pleasant change of pace from the monotony of all that. Like the element he was born to, the Avatar is unrestrained.

 

"Not like me." Azula lets her eyes slip lazily shut as she replies, a wave of sudden exhaustion flooding her veins.

 

She'd been warned that this could be one of the side effects of the medication. Chi-blocking was an art truly mastered by only the Avatar, and since he'd point-blank refused to permanently take away her bending at the Fire Lord's request for reasons she didn't even want to bother trying to comprehend, this was the only alternative that wouldn't leave her as a pile of drooling mush in the corner.

 

 _Never like me_ , she thinks, _and the world should see that as a **gift**._

 

The world should be grateful Ozai hadn't succeeded in molding Zuko into his personal weapon alongside her, or they'd have likely razed the world to ash side-by-side, and built their father a kingdom on the bones of the fallen.

 

She dreams of it sometimes, a castle made of blood and bone.

 

Her father stands at the very top of it all, smiling his terrible smile as he surveys a kingdom forged in death and endless pain.

 

~~_If there is one thing Azula knows better than even her bending, it is pain pain **pain** -_ ~~

 

A crown dripping the same crimson that stains her fingers, never to wash off.

 

~~_She scrubs and she scrubs until the red is her own, the blood is her **own** , the skin is rubbed raw and oozing-_ ~~

 

A hand reaching out to beckon her to stand at his side, the monster's daughter, the demon princess.

 

~~_She scrubs and she scrubs as if the taint of his touch could be cleansed, as if his poison didn't run through her veins, blood is blood Azula, blood is blood is **blood** -_ ~~

 

"Princess?"

 

A single word drags her back, spoken by the one voice that could actually anchor her to reality unlike so many others.

 

Ozai had shattered her mind, and the sounds of Zuko's voice only ever served to yank her back to the start of it all. Everything about him drew her back into the past. The same went for Mai and Ty Lee. All three of them served as constant reminders of the childhood she'd never really escaped, at least, not with all her pieces intact.

 

Not with all the pieces normal people aren't supposed to live _without_.

 

Azula's never been normal, that much has been evident since she'd been blessed with Agni's blue flames. But perhaps she could have come close without Ozai to warp her beyond repair.

 

"Mmm?"

 

"Are you well?"

 

A drowsy smirk tugs up the corners of her mouth. "Fine. Jus' tired."

 

"You're slurring your words."

 

She musters up the energy to half-open her eyes, and makes a conscious effort to speak clearly. "Am I?"

 

He's leaning across the slender table and wrapping a hand around her wrist before she can even think of moving away, fingers pressing down lightly over her pulse point.

 

"You feel like _ice_."

 

If she'd been more awake, Azula would have been able to hear the concern weighing his words down. But she is _tired_ , too tired to listen and almost to tired to even bother voicing a response.

 

"I just need to sleep. They warned me of the side effects, as I'm sure they did you."

 

After that, her eyes slide closed and she finds that has neither the energy nor the desire to force them open once more.

 

The last thing she remembers before the rest of her senses give way to the alluring darkness of oblivion is the feeling of a sudden, soothing warmth wrapping her in its embrace.

 

 _Safe_ , her sluggish brain murmurs to itself before finally succumbing to the ceaseless siren song of slumber.

 

**_Safe._ **

 

* * *

 

A burst of airbending keeps Azula's body from hitting the ground as she slumps sideways, clearly unconscious.

 

It's easy enough to maneuver her prone form into the bed on the opposite side of the room with his bending, and it takes little effort to summon the nurses assigned to watch over the sleeping princess for any signs of possible harm caused by the drugs, but a sense of unease lies heavy in the pit of his stomach nonetheless as he leaves the facility.

 

It wasn't like Azula to display such overt signs of weakness in front of anyone, least of all him.

 

Even in the beginning, even with dark circles under her eyes from night terrors the nurses gossiped about in hushed, horrified whispers, even with moon-pale skin and trembling hands from the overuse of sedatives that the previous doctors had used in a futile attempt to keep her docile and meek, defiance had shone bright and clear in her golden eyes. Her calm, steely demeanor betrayed nothing to anyone who visited her, even him.

 

The drugs back then hadn't suppressed her bending, but they had nearly made her too weak to even use it. He'd hated seeing her so drained, but never once had she allowed herself to appear vulnerable. Not until today.

 

Zuko had fired them all after Aang had informed him of their form of so-called treatment. He'd questioned the nurses after seeing the way Azula's hands trembled despite what he knew to be her best efforts to keep them steady, the way her golden eyes looked dull and glazed over during his other visits.

 

Today, her eyes had looked hollow and distant.

 

The last time she'd seemed so out of reach she'd been completely unstable and out of touch with reality, screaming curses at Ursa for leaving her with Ozai.

 

Seeing her so visibly unhinged had shaken him.

 

Azula didn't know about his first trip here with Zuko.

 

He hadn't even gone into the room.

 

The nurses mentioned she was having a bad episode, and it wasn't safe to introduce her to an unfamiliar face.

 

Apparently hunting someone down for over a year didn't count as _familiarity_.

 

He'd watched from the bars as she'd writhed and screamed, watched as she huddled in the corner as soon as she'd laid eyes on Zuko's face, recoiled from the sight of him with wide, terrified eyes.

 

It was the sight of her then that had convinced him to stay, to extend his visit to the Fire Nation.

 

Here he was, three years later, a permanent resident on Ember Island, one of the closest islands to the one that the mental hospital had been built on to house the fallen princess.

 

He still traveled the world with Appa on occasion, but for the most part, he was only called upon to resolve the most dire of situations. It had been agreed that the Four Nations needed to learn how to stand on their own and forge peace without the constant use of the Avatar as a crutch.

 

The repair of the Air Nation temples could wait, at least, for now.

 

Sokka and Suki split their time between the Southern Water Tribe and Kyoshi Island. Chief Hakoda refused to accept anything less than regular visits from his children and his new in-laws. The rebuilding of the tribe was going much faster now that most of their captured benders and warriors had been returned home.

 

Toph hadn't exactly settled down yet- at the moment, she was spending some quality time at the Fire Nation Palace, doing her best to annoy Zuko to death. But the Earthbender finally had the one thing she'd spent her whole life clawing for- _freedom_.

 

She'd nearly been disowned, but in the end, her actions had spoken for themselves, and the Bei Fongs finally accepted the fact that their daughter was more than her disability.

 

And Katara.

 

The first kiss they'd shared had also been their last, they'd broken apart laughing from the sheer hilarity of it.

 

After a clarifying conversation, they'd walked away with a bond stronger than ever, finally confident in the knowledge that they were destined to be the best of friends and nothing more.

 

She'd been crowned Fire Lady a mere year and a half after the final battle against Ozai and the Agni Kai against Azula.

 

While there had been dissenters in the beginning, Katara had earned the love and respect of the Fire Nation with her fair judgement and compassionate heart. Even the most stubborn of the nobles had eventually caved in and developed a grudging respect for her unbreakable spirit.

 

Surprisingly enough, Mai had been one of Zuko and Katara's most staunch supporters. She'd been the one to break off her relationship with Zuko and push him to act on his feelings for Katara. Now, she served as royal advisor to both Fire Lord and Fire Lady, though Katara made it clear she had a monopoly on her best friend's time.

 

Their friendship had been another welcome surprise- not many had expected the girls to develop such a close bond, not after everything that had happened between them all, especially with regards to Zuko. But Mai had worked hard to redeem herself after being freed from her imprisonment after betraying Azula at Boiling Rock, and so had Ty Lee, who now lives happily among her fellow Kyoshi Warriors. That had earned them both a second chance in Katara and everyone else's eyes- after giving one to Zuko and so many others, it wouldn't have been fair not to.

 

Unlearning a hundred years of prejudice and hatred was hard, but it was something that people from all of the nations were finally learning how to do.

 

Everyone was finally getting some semblance of a happy ending, and it was more than a little unnerving to witness.

 

They talked about it sometimes, when they gathered. It felt odd, living without the weight of war on their shoulders. None of them had ever really thought of what life might be like after the war. Most of them hadn't even assumed they'd survive.

 

Yet survive they had-

 

And there was no denying that it felt _good_.

 

Azula deserved peace like that too.

 

He's never been as certain of anything as he is of this.

 

Aang had made several disturbing revelations over the years, many of them concerning the princess herself.

 

Nobody had ever given the girl a chance.

 

Ozai had seen a weapon.

 

Ursa had seen a monster.

 

Even Iroh had thought her past saving.

 

He'd worked hard to guide Zuko, even when the banished prince had been consumed in the same darkness as his sister. But he'd never extended the same hand towards his niece, to steer her towards the side of good with the same ruthless, unyielding determination he'd used with her brother.

 

Beneath the carefully crafted veneer of cynicism and sarcasm was a girl whom nobody had ever really thought to show kindness to.

 

Three years ago, after seeing her trapped in hallucinations drawn from memories of what he was horribly sure had been a childhood even worse than Zuko's, he'd become determined to change that.

 

Because in a way, Azula wasn't totally responsible for who she has become.

 

Not when she was simply following the path that everyone else had forced her to walk.

 

Had he been in her shoes, he's sure he would have crumbled long before the Agni Kai.

 

At the very core of her being, Azula is a survivor.

 

He hopes she'll survive this, prays that her indomitable willpower can endure this change.

 

_Spirits help her._

 

_Spirits help us **all**._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're out there, gimme a shout.
> 
> I hope I'm not the only one who wants to see where this story goes. :)
> 
> Will Azula and Aang end up together? 
> 
> Who knows.
> 
> If you read the note at the beginning of this entire work, you'd know I tagged both 'Aang/Azula' and 'Aang & Azula' just in case. 
> 
> She's the focus of this story, so romance isn't my primary concern here, though I'll admit I ship the pairing myself.
> 
> What do you ship? ;)


End file.
